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A number of authors are emphasizing most cardio oxygen consumption (VO2max) as being essential for wholesome ageing, so I assumed I’d look into testing it. It’s costly to have achieved professionally, however there are a number of self-tests accessible. I needed a biking one, and remembered there was one within the ebook Aerobics Program For Whole Nicely-Being written by Dr. Kenneth Cooper (usually referred to as the “father of aerobics”) again in 1982, nonetheless accessible. Dr. Cooper turned 93 this 12 months and is himself a superb commercial for wholesome ageing. He developed a 12 minute aerobics check for operating initially, however on this ebook additionally gave tables for swimming and biking.
Dr Cooper used knowledge from a lot of topics of assorted ages to correlate the outcomes of those exams to V02max. You can too simply evaluate your outcomes on the exams to his tables, which have classes “very poor” by “glorious”. Sadly, the information stops on the “60+” class, however by plotting the outcomes and extrapolating, I estimated that to be within the glorious class for biking at 70+, males have to realize a distance of better than 3.5 miles in 12 minutes (equal to common velocity of over 17.5 mph). For those who don’t have the ebook, the biking outcomes are additionally right here and in addition proven under.
So I created a close-by flat loop, which is now on Strava as “Cooper TT North” (it’s a bit north of Morgan Hill, between Hale and Dougherty avenues), proven right here. I did this as a part of my experience yesterday morning, and lined the three.89 mile loop in 13:14, for a median velocity of 17.63 mph, which is equal to protecting 3.5 miles in 11.9 minutes). So primarily based on my estimate, I’m within the glorious class for age 70+ (and in the course of the “good” class for 60+). That feels fairly good!
Dr, Cooper didn’t specify bike place in his ebook, however aerobars weren’t extensively accessible within the early 80s, so I figured my higher-speed arrange on my recumbent, with a extremely reclined seat (at the very least as aero as an upright time trial bike with aerobars), could be dishonest a bit in comparison with the information within the exams. So I used low rolling resistance tires however the extra upright “touring” seating place of my bike. I’ll repeat this check about as soon as a month and hopefully be capable of enhance for some time, and at the very least maintain my outcomes from degrading too shortly over time.
Listed here are the tables for the Cooper bike check:
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